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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3315 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 3, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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If you had more free time, for instance say we took @orthoxerox’s policy prescription and make it illegal to have full time dual income, say you could only work 20 hrs a week, what would you spend your time on?

For the purpose of this, assume that you would make the same amount of money working part time (or if your spouse worked full time you'd make the same as a dual income household.)

I would consider actually having kids myself, volunteering, trying my hand at starting that blog I’ve always meant to. I’d do more cardio, cook more, take my pup on long walks. I dream of it…. Alas.

This was in many ways life in April-May 2020 for me, and what I found was:

I read more, but not as much/not always the type of quality things I would have liked to. I found a crate of vintage Playboys and read them straight through, which was interesting and funny from an archeological perspective (and, you know, tits) but the complete works of Plato remained doggedly unfinished.

I worked out more, but not as hard as I would have liked to. I would spend hours in the gym doing stuff like German Volume Training or heavy bag rounds or swimming laps. And I did improve on those things, got up to a full mile swim, but I didn't hit the PRs I wanted.

I tried various self improvement hobbies that failed, like learning Spanish. I showered a lot, often multiple times a day, because if I felt at all dirty why not. I developed the odd habit (I've held onto to a large degree) of changing clothes for every situation to the exact ideal outfit for working out/walking the dog/lounging around the house/going into work for something/etc

Overall I came out the other end a little better educated and in a little better shape, got the best tan of my life, not to the extent I could have. the overall impact was that I wasted a lot of time.

Overall I came out the other end a little better educated and in a little better shape, got the best tan of my life, not to the extent I could have. the overall impact was that I wasted a lot of time.

Interesting! I've had similar experiences in the past of 'wasted time' but I still think leisure and having time to understand your own failure modes is important, as long as it doesn't get you into a rut.

I had a similar period last year for about three months, and managed to spend most of my days doing yoga/meditating/taking walks in nature.

I still spent time reading/playing video games/wasting time, but it was actually incredibly healing for me. I made more strides in handling my chronic pain in those three months than I had in the previous five years. I had no idea that the grind of working a stressful job full time had contributed so much to my mental/physical issues.

Then again, I work in sales and typically put in more than 40 hours, so I'd imagine many programmers here that have cushy 15 hour workweeks can't relate. No offense to y'all, I'm honestly jealous I don't have the skillset.

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